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During the late night of the 7th of April 1990, a devastating blaze erupted on board the ferry Scandinavian Star, a car and passenger ferry traveling between Oslo and Frederikshavn. Inadequate staff training along with jammed safety doors accelerated the propagation of the flames, while deadly cyanide gas emitted from combusting materials caused the loss of 159 people. At first, the disaster was attributed to a traveler—a lorry driver with a history of fire-setting. Since this suspect too perished in the fire and was not able to refute himself, the complete facts about the event stayed hidden for a long time. Only in 2020 that a detailed documentary revealed the fire was probably started intentionally as part of an insurance fraud.

Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Series: A Glimpse

Within the initial book of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star sequence, the preceding volume, an unidentified narrator is riding on a public transport through the Danish capital when she observes an elderly man on the sidewalk. As the vehicle moves away, she feels an “uncanny feeling” that she is carrying a part of him with her. Compelled to repeat the journey in search of him, the character finds herself in a setting that is both unfamiliar and deeply familiar. She presents us to a couple named Maggie and Kurt, whose relationship is strained by the pressures of their conflicted pasts. In the concluding section of that volume, it is implied that the root of the character's disaffection may stem from a disastrous financial decision made on his behalf by a man known as T.

This New Volume: An Unconventional Approach

The Devil Book begins with an lengthy prose poem in which the narrator describes her struggle to compose T's narrative. “In this volume, two,” she states, “we were meant / to trace him / from youth up until / the evening / when he sat anticipating for / the report that / the fire / on the Scandinavian Star / had effectively been / set.” Overwhelmed by the task she has set herself and derailed by the pandemic, she tackles the tale indirectly, as a type of allegory. “I came to think / that I / can do / anything I want / so this / is my work / this is / for you / this is / an sensational story / about businessmen and / the dark force.”

A narrative slowly emerges of a woman who experiences quarantine in the UK capital with a near-unknown person and during those weeks tells to him what occurred to her a decade earlier, when she accepted an proposal from a figure who professed to be the devil to grant all her wishes, so long as she didn't question his intentions. As the threads of the dual narratives become more interwoven, we begin to suspect that they are identical—or at minimum that the nature of T is legion, for there are demonic forces all around.

Another blaze is present: a passionate, compelling commitment to literature as a political act

Pacts and Consequences: A Thematic Exploration

Classic stories instruct us that it is the dark figure who makes deals, not God, and that we enter into them at our peril. But suppose the narrator herself is the devil? A third storyline comes finally to light—the story of a young woman whose early years was marred by mistreatment and who was placed in a mental health facility, under pressure to conform with societal norms or suffer more of the same. “[The devil] knows that in the game you've created for it, there are a pair of results: surrender or stay a monster.” A alternative path is finally revealed through a collection of poems to the night that are simultaneously a rallying cry against the forces of wealth and power.

Parallels and Readings: From Fiction to Real Events

Numerous British readers of Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star novels will reflect right away of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, which, though accidental in origin, shares parallels in that the resulting tragedy and loss of life can be attributed at in part to the devil's bargain of prioritizing profit over people. In these first two books of what is planned to be a multi-volume series, the fire aboard the ferry and the series of fraudulent business deals that ended in mass murder are a ominous background element, showing themselves only in brief glimpses of information or implication yet casting a growing influence over all that occurs. Some readers may doubt how much it is feasible to interpret The Devil Book as a stand-alone work, when its aim and significance are so intricately bound into a larger whole whose final form, at present, is uncertain.

Innovative Prose: Art and Morality Fused

There will be others—and I count myself as among them—who will fall in love with the author's project purely as text, as properly experimental writing whose moral and creative intent are so deeply entwined as to make them inseparable. “Compose verses / for we need / that too.” There is another fire here: a passionate, attractive devotion to writing as a statement. I will persist to pursue this literary journey, wherever it leads.